Web Development in the "Real World" Part 3

MAKOVISION: "What is the most common thing you find yourself explaining or teaching to every client?"

Jeremy Domby: "I always hear, "I want to be able to update and make changes to my site by myself". This is most commonly heard from the clients that have budget of $300 for their website, and when I say "FTP" they think I'm either referring to a government agency, or telling them I have a disease. "We can build a database for you, which will allow you to update your site and make changes to certain pages".. That usually sounds great until pricing comes into play.

My personal favorite-

Joe A. Client: "When someone types in REAL ESTATE into a search engine, I want my site to come up first. Because I know this one guy, and he makes tons of money that way." Umm yeah... ok.

Jason Blakeney: "There are a few things. I always have to teach a client how to create meta information. I always have to explain the differences between getting a database driven website and signing up for a monthly maintenance program to maintain the information that would have been database driven. I also find myself often explaining that the functionality that they are looking for is not as cheap as they think it is. "

Joshua Cyr: "Basic rules of thumb in design, things that they should know if they don't already know. Once a client sees that if he wants to have a huge graphic with gradients and shadows and bevels, he'll lose potential visitors because that graphic will make the page load hideously slow, he would gladly opt for something simpler.

"I also find myself telling many clients how to refresh their browser, where to type their website address (because their website 'wasn't coming up when they typed the address in Yahoo'...)

"Basically, they aren't web designers. They know all about their business, but their business on the web can be a whole different thing. Most clients need some degree of teaching, hand-holding when it comes to websites, internet trends, how to succeed on the internet, etc...that's why many of them come to us in the first place. "

Heather Rosario: "Readjusting any and all of their unrealistic thoughts about technology. There is definately a big gap between the web design companies and the client's actual knowledge of the web world. Sometimes we've found it necessary to actually travel to the client's offices and educate them on different softwares or walk people through things over the phone. Education is so important to the smooth running of a project.

Clients have a tendancy to think they can just give you some vague specification for something and then you pull out your magic wand and "ZAP", their Website or database just magically appears, complete with the most accurate content about their company and products. Yet, they fail to recognize that they need to actually provide you with some information.

"Sometimes a client's expectation regarding what will be accomplished is WAY out of line. For instance, some people actually think we can make a guy's hand pop out of the screen and slap the user a "hi-five" before the guy pulls his hand back in the screen and proceeds to
do a little song and dance. But we all know that's just not gonna happen.

"Or we're constantly explaining that even though they can't SEE what was done, we actually have done work and that's why we sent them a bill. When you're designing a database, alot of times they think you've done nothing cause the front end looks the same. Even though they know they can generate reports today, whereas, 2 weeks ago they couldn't even populate 1 field."

MAKOVISION: "What are the trends you are noticing among new clients? What are they expecting from you that is different from, say, 1997?"

Jeremy Domby: "Honestly? I think most businesses that we work with are still not web-savy. There are still the same issues- either they want the world for 25 cents, or they'll agree to a nice size site, but NEVER get you any content. Occasionally, we will see a client come in, that is prepared, having all their content, knowing what they want, and have an idea of how much it will cost. That's the best! Overall, I can't really say there is too much difference between clients here in South West Florida. But, on a larger scale, we did a project with General Electric, for http://www.genafta.com , and, for a large organization, it was a highly organized and efficient project to be a part of. I think the larger organizations, and companies that reside in major markets, have really gotten their act together as far as the web is concerned. "

Jason Blakeney: "Many clients are looking for daily content renewal such as news topics, stocks, etc. I'd like to say that they are asking for new and fresh styles but (and you can quote me on this), most web clients are unfortunately still looking for pre-1997 web styles, rather than the cleaner, more practical styles of the new decade. "Can I get those buttons rounded, a little bigger, and beveled with a drop shadow? Yeaaaahhh, that's it!" Ugh. Makes being an artistic designer very difficult at times. A lot of times I'll design a website and it will be (in my opinion) real nice, clean, flashy, and balanced, and then the customer asks for me to make the picture on the site 2 times larger, give it a drop shadow, and make sure it loads instantaneously. "Oh and make sure those buttons look a little more like...tabs... yeah, I think I've seen tabs somewhere before." "

Joshua Cyr: "I'm seeing more clients that actually have a good knowledge about the internet. I'm also seeing many people recognizing the reason why they should expect to pay quite a bit for a good website...they've seen what happens when they pay some "We just got FrontPage and we're WEBMASTERS!" kids $100 for a website. They've already had a bad experience and they get wise. It used to be finding someone who knew something about web design ... now the market is large and experienced enough for a client to be choosy in
selecting a company to design/maintain/remodel their website. "

Heather Rosario: "I have to say, more of our clients seem to want simple, clean sites without the midi files playing in the background or the cheezey big button navigation graphics. A lot of people ask about having well polished flash intros.

Before they wanted a website with a hit counter. Now they want a website and top ranking in a major search engine, minus the hit counter. At least that's progress. They still want to be able to speak with a live person. They want to understand what you are doing and, to an extent, how you are doing it. They want to see results.

Bottom Line: They want to have something that works as good as the "other guy's" but for a lot less. They figure prices should have changed alot over the last 5 years since the development companies are now a "dime a dozen".

"But I don't know if that's much different from 1997."

Other articles in this series:

Web Development in the "Real World" Part 1
Web Development in the "Real World" Part 2
Web Development in the "Real World" Part 3